Historical Abstracts

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Description

Historical Abstracts indexes the literature about world history (1450 forward), excluding the United States and Canada. This is an obviously important limiter: do not search here for ancient or Classical history or even the history of the Middle Ages. See America: History and Life for the indexing of history about the United States and Canada. Records are provided for academic journals, magazines, and books and monographs.

Indexes about 2,690 scholarly journals, some published in languages other than English (over 40 languages are represented). Regardless of an article’s language of publication, most article citations are accompanied by detailed English-language abstracts. HA is unique among indexes in its searchability by the period an article covers, not merely its date of publication. Further, history is broadly construed and searching may be fruitful for any concern with an historical dimension.

Special Feature: CLIO Notes

Guides one through subjects in World History since 1450 by allowing one to browse through chronologies and provides brief summaries of significant events and themes in modern history. This resource offers a structured and suggestive way to explore a topic and the contents of the database.

Special Feature: Cited References

Click the Times Cited hyperlink on a Result, then the Citing Articles Screen presents a list of records that cite the original article. Useful for guaging the potential impact of an item but perhaps more usefully identifies pieces that are to some extent related to the original article.

Special Feature: Historical Period Searching

Enables one to search by the period covered; not by publication date (although that can be done too). For instance, you may be interested only in a specific topic during a specific period or date range.

Dates Covered

Topical coverage goes back to 1450. Publication dates go back to the late 19th century.